yes. there are 2 options:
[1] turn off interactive spell checking:
(with vi or emacs) edit you ~/.AbiSuite/AbiWord.Profile.
change both instances of "_builtin_" to "custom".
set AutoSpellCheck to "0".
save it and launch AbiWord.
[2] try getting a french dictionary. (i've not tried this,
but it "ought" to work.) we use ispell internally, so if you
have a french ispell dictionary [try `locate "*.hash"` or
`locate ispell`], edit your AbiWord profile to use it instead
of our american one. again, change "_builtin_" to "custom"
and then change SpellCheckWordList to "french.hash". and put
a copy of this file in the AbiSuite dictionary directory (or
change SpellCheckDirectory to "/usr/ispell/..." or whatever).
i'll have a preferences dialog available shortly, so in the
future, you won't have to do all of this the hard way....
hope this helps,
jeff
PS. the following link has notes on getting the UI locale to work:
http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-user/99/September/0048.html